Wintergreen.Gaultheria procumbens.
Found during July in woods, and along the edges of woods.
The creeping stalk sends up an erect stem, leafy at the top, about 4 or 5 inches high, woody-fibred and tough, and smooth to the touch. Its color is green,—red toward the root.
The leaf is a broad oval, with a rounded tip, an obscurely notched margin, of a tough and thick fibre, and smooth, polished surface. It is evergreen: when old a dark green, often bronzy; more yellow-green, tinged with dull red, when young. The alternate leaves, on very short stems, are clustered at the top of the stalk.
The small bell-shaped flower is minutely 5-parted, and all white. The flowers, on short curving stems, grow singly from the angles of the leaves, hanging their bells downward.
The fruit is round and small, a bright cherry red in color; it ripens in the fall and remains throughout snow-time, always ready to lend its glowing color, with the bronzy leaves that surround it, to a winter bouquet from the woods. The new shoots put forth from the ground in June, and are called “youngsters” in the country; they have an aromatic, pungent flavor, and going “youngstering” is a favorite diversion of childhood. The plant is a great colonist, and year after year its plantations thrive in the same localities.